2011 SEGD Conference+Expo+Awards

01 June 2011

04 June 2011

Montreal (Canada)

SEGD’s annual event is the only international conference focused on communication design for the built environment.

For the global community of designers, industry professionals, educators, and design clients who strive to create compelling, emotive, and information-rich environments, it is an invaluable source of inspiration, education, and networking.

An innovative conference format will combine stimulating talks by design thought leaders, engaging panel discussions, networking opportunities, and fun project tours around beautiful and design-centric Montreal. Attendees will be actively encouraged to "Join and Participate" through a series of activities including a speed dating-inspired Face to Face event, a night of Short Clips presentations, and a new Design Improv session that will team up participants to solve real-world design problems.

Vive La Diversité - Designing the Difference

The word "diversity" has two meanings, one traced to the Middle English divers(e) (meaning several and many) and one from the Old French divers and Latin diversus (meaning different, contrary, or separate.) Thanks to these origins, we inherited a term with multiple and contradictory interpretations. Diversity is variety and multiformity but it is also the quality of being different, unique, unlike others.

So what about diversity in design? Aren’t we always looking for the design gurus? For a strong paradigm? For the iconic and different rather than multiple streams?

As the world becomes a global village without borders, we are more exposed than ever to a variety of expressions and possibilities. Can diversity in design be a driver of positive change, embracing the vast complexity of expressions and values in our world? Can designing our constantly changing environments become a primary catalyst for social and cultural change?

For this first international SEGD Conference+Expo+Awards, speakers from around the world and from diverse disciplines will discuss how the integration of science, technology, academia, new media, innovative approaches, and concepts can influence design, and how design communicates this to the world.

The perfect setting for a conversation on diversity is Montreal, a city that has embraced it throughout its history. A multicultural and cosmopolitan city, it showcases the beauty of diversity and reflects our conference theme:
Vive La Diversité – Designing the Difference.